The Film Music of Bernard Herrmann - Hangover Square & Citizen Kane [Soundtrack]

Orla Boylan (Artist), Martin Roscoe (Artist), Yuri Torchinsky (Artist), Bernard Herrmann (Composer), Rumon Gamba (Conductor) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Conductor: Rumon Gamba
• Composer: Bernard Herrmann
• Audio CD (February 23, 2010)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Soundtrack
• Label: CHANDOS CHACONNE
• ASIN: B0031Q8VU6
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #168,169 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best performance I have ever heard, August 22, 2010

By 

Erik M. Schmiedel (Lakeside) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Film Music of Bernard Herrmann - Hangover Square & Citizen Kane (Audio CD)

I don't think you can get a better performance, nor recording, than this. Its fast, and well followed by the orchestra (they keep up). Listen to some of the other recordings of this and you'll know what I mean. I bought this for the Hangover Square, thought it would have a decent performance, I was not prepared to be blown away. Not Many people get Herrmann; hes usually played too slow, but not Rumon Gamba, he gets it.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The greatest film music composer, May 3, 2010

By 

Craig M. Zeichner "CMZ" (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Film Music of Bernard Herrmann - Hangover Square & Citizen Kane (Audio CD)

I grew up with Charles Gerhardt's RCA recordings of film music and his recording of Bernard Herrmann's music for Citizen Kane was one of my favorites from this sadly out-of-print series. Thankfully, this new recording featuring an extended selection of music from Citizen Kane (almost 50 minutes worth of music) and excerpts from Hangover Square (including the Concerto macabre) is excellent.

The Hangover Square music is well-suited to the film's tale of madness and murder. Menacing piano chords, snarling brass, swirling strings and rattling percussion dominate. It's not necessarily accessible music, but it certainly does set a mood and you must admire the fiery virtuosity conductor Rumon Gamba draws from the BBC Philharmonic players.

The most famous music from Hangover Square is the Concerto Macabre. If you have seen the film you will certainly remember the scene where the deranged composer George Bone hammers away at the piano as a building burns and collapses around him. Herrmann's concerto owes an obvious debt to Liszt's Totentanz and pianist Martin Roscoe plays the hell out of it. This is over-the-top music for an extremely over-the-top film sequence.

The Citizen Kane music is brilliant. Once again Herrmann serves what appears on the screen with a score that is not easy to pigeon-hole, just like the film's title character. Herrmann's music is a riveting mix of antic gallops and dark melancholy. There's even a faux French grand opera aria that is nicely sung by soprano Orla Boylan. The BBC Philharmonic performances are all top-notch and the sound quality of the CD is stunning. It sounds trite, but when I listen to this CD I see the films in my head, I suspect this is high praise for a recording of film music. I hope Gamba and the BBC have more Herrmann in store for us.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Music Like It Isn't Written Anymore!!!, March 11, 2010

By 

Richard Masloski (New Windsor, New York USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Herrmann, B.: Film Music (MP3 Download)

After years of only having the magnificent "Concerto Macabre" from the classic HANGOVER SQUARE on both LP and CD, it is a joyous occasion that we now have the extended score on this well produced, beautifully performed CD. (I do think, however, that certain music cues are missing that would have made for an even richer acoustic brew: by this I mean the piercing discordant music that sets Bone off, for one. It is played here - but I don't think it is played from its first "appearance" in the film. By-the-way, that high-pitched discord presaged the "Psycho" murder shriek-theme by many years. Both pieces of music are the best acoustic equivalents of murder ever composed, in my estimation. I also think that some of the Bone and Nette music underscore (based on the music he is writing for her songs) is not given its due herein.) Regardless, the fact that we now have more music from one of Herrmann's best scores is a cause for rejoicing.

As to the "Citizen Kane" section of this CD, it is a pity that the full score is not offered us. Somewhere in my collection I have the complete score (I believe only on vinyl, however) - but it was, again, the complete score. So, absent from this CD is most noticeably the March of Time sequence and the end credit sequence which is the bouncing, joyful, orchestrated version of the "Mr. Kane" song. Admittedly, Herrmann did not write the majority of the music for the "March of Time" sequence and the end credit song - whilst orchestrated by the Maestro - was not an original composition of his own. I believe it was a theme out of Mexico that Welles liked and recommended. The fact that these musical selections are not included is most likely due to the fact that they were not written by Herrmann. Still and all, it would have been nice to have the full score.

One final thought: Martin Roscoe, the pianist with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra under Rumon Gamba's baton, performs the "Concerto Macabre" arguably even better than it is done in the film.